Schoolyard bullies now online

BOSTON - When the reputation of a student, teacher or school
can be brought down by a YouTube posting, blog or anonymous
email, educators need to be "more vigilant than ever."

That was the advice for hundreds of participants attending an
April 12 workshop during the annual National Catholic
Educational Association convention in Boston.

More than 10,000 educators attended the April 11-13
convention filled with workshops focusing on professional and
spiritual development and the challenges faced by Catholic
schools and religious education programs in today's modern
world.

During the convention, several workshops focused on the use
of technology and the problem of online bullying. Sister Mary
Angela Shaughnessy, a Sister of Charity of Nazareth, Ky., and
executive director of the Education Law Institute in
Louisville, Ky., told Catholic school teachers and
administrators that they cannot ignore what students are
doing online.

She said she gets asked often by school leaders: "Can't we
just say it's not our problem?" since Facebook postings, for
example, are not school-related activities.

Her response is point-blank: "No."

When students defame their school, teachers or other students
online, it becomes a school-related issue that needs a
response, she said.

"Don't give that up. Deal with the problem of cyberbullying,"
which she described as the top issue she gets questions
about.

Sister Shaughnessy defined cyberbullying as "willful and
repeated harm through computers, cellphones and other
electronic devices" done by those under the age of 18 that
could fall under felony charges for adults who take such
actions.

She also said the basic premise of what these students are
doing isn't new, it simply uses another venue.

As she put it: "The schoolyard bullies have moved online."

Which means teachers must be on the lookout and pay attention
to clues they get that something's amiss.

She said teachers can be held liable for cyberbullying if
they know, or even should have known, it was taking place.

Social media laws are not well-established, she said, but
they do point to the need for response on the part of school
officials when bullying takes place.

That means if a student happens to bring up something
offensive that happened to him or her online, teachers should
ask to see the offending item and tell the school principal
about it.

"Schools can search computers just like they search lockers,"
she added.

But as teachers are paying attention to online activity, or
getting involved in it themselves, they have to be careful to
keep within their boundaries, she noted.

For example, teachers should not be friends with their
students on Facebook nor should they be sending them emails
late at night or providing students their cellphone numbers,
she said.

Father Michael Huggins, a priest from the Archdiocese of
Louisville and author of the NCEA publication: "Internet and
Social Media: What Parents Need to Know," also spoke at the
workshop and pointed out the different ways young people and
adults approach technology.

The priest, who is the associate director of the Family Nurse
Practitioner program at Bellarmine University in Louisville,
said research shows that young people's familiarity with
modern technology also has drawbacks.

For instance the "instant friendship and intimacy" they find
is often misleading. They also tend to presume that what they
read online is true. He also noted that young people might be
"adept communicators" online but not always in talking to
others.

He said parents tend to be disconnected from the electronic
world that is so prevalent in their children's lives. Sister
Shaughnessy agreed but said parents shouldn't step away from
it just because they "don't have the ease of technology."

Instead, they too need to be monitoring what's going on,
checking the online history, for example, of websites their
children have visited.

She said a lot of adults might not understand Facebook or
have the time to use it, but that shouldn't hold them back.

Sister Shaughnessy, a longtime NCEA convention speaker on
legal issues, said she even has taken the plunge.

"I know I said I wouldn't join Facebook," she told the crowd,
admitting that she recently did so only because her religious
community did.